I listened to the Comcast representative call on soundcloud recently, and although it was infuriating, I couldn't help but start laughing out of sheer disbelief. Other things that seriously aggravate me may lead to me laughing in exasperation, but I don't think of "exasperation" as necessarily including laughter. Is there a word for this kind of laughter, or for anger that is so intense that it causes laughter?

I think the laughter comes from a sudden appreciation of the absurdity of the situation—and absurd things can strike us as being comical even when we're angry. The term I suggest for this phenomenon is Sisyphean laughter, after Camus's famous observation that "we must imagine Sisyphus happy"—to which I would add, we must imagine Sisyphus laughing when subjected to ridiculous and futile interactions with incompetent and/or intransigent customer service reps.
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Sven YargsJul 29 at 22:22